Physicians Office Lab (POL) LIS

The easy-to-use LIS application automates management of local diagnostic testing and regulatory compliance for all popular lab equipment.
The software is designed for use in a physician's office lab and is delivered preconfigured for your devices
on an Apex LIS workstation. Up to 8 local lab devices can be connected to each LIS workstation.

HL7 interfaces available to all EMRs and Reference Labs.
This flexible system can easily expand to support multiple locations. Apex provides both local sever and cloud-based options for its LIS.

The LIS is designed to be easy-to-use by first-time labs and can be configured to exactly match your lab workflow requirements.
Results Reports are configured to meet your exact reporting requirements at no additional cost.

Multi-location practices are able to easily place orders and view results using either practice EMR or the Apex web portal interface.

A robust suite of regulatory compliance tools are included that automate the process of collecting, managing and reporting lab compliance.

The Apex LIS provides the user with an extensive set of configuration options that allow the user to
configure the application to match the needs of their lab and practice.

Practice Management

The Company Location Maintenance module stores information in the database about the practices locations.
The action buttons on the form let you: add, change, delete and search for practice location information.

Processing Results

Processing results can be configured to automatically deliver results to your EHR or you can specify (by device) that manual approval of results by lab tech is required prior to releasing print or EHR.

The Apex LIS includes the ability to configure all of your “Quick Tests” (e.g. flu, strep,…) for rapid entry which then delivers results to your EHR.

The Lab Results Maintenance function is used to display and manage the results of a test. In most cases you will only be able to view patient test results.

The System Administrator is able to change or results for tests that have not yet been accepted and become part of the patient record. This is typically justified by operator or device error that needs to be corrected.

Staff with appropriate access levels are able to manually add lab results when required. This is typically associated with measurements taken manually like temperature and blood pressure.

Orders

The Apex LIS provides the ability to enter lab requests using your choice from multiple entry modules designed to be easy to use and fit the workflow in your lab.

The Apex LIS can also automatically accept orders from your Electronic Health Record (EHR) application using the international HL7 standard. When HL7 orders are deployed there is no operator action required to create test requests and specimen labels may be automatically produced in the correct quantity for each panel. The application supports the creation of both lab appointments as well as “Standing Orders” for both local and ref lab testing.

Specimen Management

When specimens are provided by client the Reference Lab Manager will automatically print barcoded specimen labels at client location. Specimen labels are automatically created regardless of which order origination method the client chooses.

Specimens created locally or received from client are logged into specimen storage by using a barcode scanner to scan the specimen barcode and the storage location barcode. When test is ready to be performed the Lab Request Status screen identifies the location of the specimen. The specimen is removed from storage by using a barcode scanner to scan specimen and location barcodes.

The Patient Results reports menu option displays a selection form that allows you to select lab results performed that you wish to print. The report will display the data reported by the lab device that performed the test. When you select this function the computer will display the Individual Results Report Selection form. This form automatically selects all of the lab results performed

on the current day for the lab location shown in the Location dropdown field. You may change the Location and date selection and click the Query button to view different lab results in the grid. You may also select a specific patient by using the patient lookup button (Binoculars). When you click on the Report button the report will be printed for the row selected in the grid.

QC Management

Lab devices performing diagnostic testing are required to comply with quality control (QC) rules that specify periodic testing of the device to ensure that it is accurately measuring and reporting test observation results.

The Apex LIS application has an extensive set of automated tools to assist in performing, assessing and reporting on required QC testing.

Apex LIS applications are delivered with required QC testing for each device to be connected already loaded into the LIS database. The applications provide lab management tools for adding Westgard Rules processing, production of required QC reports (including Levey-Jennings). The Apex LIS automatically identifies QC results as control results and stores in the QC database subsystem for later evaluation and reporting.

The Quality Control (QC) Data Entry function provides an easy-to-use form for entering and maintaining QC Test results. Normally QC results are automatically processed by the Application( and this form is used to set final status (e.g. Pass or Fail) for the QC. You may, however, directly enter QC results from this form. The action buttons on the form allow you to add, change

or delete entries. Change and Delete require Supervisor login. The Quality Control Data Entry form has two parts. The top part is used to display detailed Quality Control information. The bottom part of the form contains a grid that is used to display Quality Control rows. When you click on a row the record information will be displayed in the fields at the top of the form.

Data Mining

All lab results are also saved as data to facilitate analysis and comparison. The Apex Data Mining subsystem allows you to easily assess trends at either the patient or group level.

At the patient level the Data Mining subsystem is able to produce comparative results reports as well as graphs of analyte observation values.

At the group level the user is able to enter a search criteria against the entire patient population and retrieve all matching results sets. Search filters may include: sex, age and date range for observations.

Web Portal

The Apex Web Portal provides users of the Apex LIS with the ability to support the remote entry of lab orders and the ability to retrieve lab results.

The Web Portal is hosted on an Apex secure server to ensure HIPAA compliance and relieve the user of the need to host and manage the application. The Web Portal communicates with the user's Apex LIS database thru HL7 messages. Users with existing websites will provide a link from one of their website pages to the Web Portal. The Web Portal is configurable to assume the "look and feel” of the user's existing website. The entry point to both versions of the Web Portal is the Login Page. To gain access to the Web Portal functions required a valid User ID and password.